UPDATE: Human Movement LLC, has taken over the remaining Run For Your Lives events. This company is behind events like Dirty Girl Mud Run, The Color Run, 5K Foam Fest and more. As such their Facebook, twitter, and website are now back to life. So happy to hear that Run For Your Lives will live on!
Run For Your Lives is no more. This was news that saddened me. The news that all future events for Run For Your Lives have been cancelled indefinitely swept across the internet and through the OCR community Wednesday afternoon.
Registrants received a vague email today apologizing for the cancellation of all their events and directed people to contact their credit card companies for refunds.
This is an all to common sight lately with obstacle races. Races that appeared to be successful have closed shop unexpectedly. This was seen early this year with Hero Rush, which was another seemingly successful event with lots of positive reviews.
Run For Your Lives 2012
Run For Your Lives became overrun with upset registrants looking for answers after all the events were cancelled. Within an hour of the news, they took down their Facebook page and locked their Twitter account. They have also taken down pages from their site like the Events and Contact pages. Even their production company, Reed Street Productions is now missing a contact page.
We learned that their event planners quietly contacted venues this morning and cancelled their booked locations. Not long after, emails began to appear in people’s inboxes.
So where does this leave obstacle-hungry participants?
You can contact your credit card company to file a dispute against RFYL. You will be required to show proof that you tried to resolve the matter with the race first. This can be a lengthy process, but there is a very good chance that you will be able to recoup your registration fee.
Could this happen to other races too?
This just shows that even a big event can fail. Was it that they got too big too fast? Did a sponsor pull their funding? Were there deceptive practices happening with their production company? It’s still too soon to tell. Once the dust settles some of these answers will come to light. A source did say that they claimed to be having “financial difficulties”, which resulted in the decision to cancel the events indefinitely.
If you ran one of these races you know that they got into the game when the zombie craze was just peaking and they drew huge crowds. Their events exploded with huge crowds (upwards of 10,000 participants at their recent SoCal event). They had some huge sponsors like Subaru and branding and promotions with the highly anticipated video game Dead Rising 3. Although the west coast events were well received, there were not as high praise for recent events that took place on the east coast.
It appears, as with Hero Rush, things went bad fast. We may never know what caused this event to take a turn for the worse so quickly. But if it is made public, other race directors should pay close attention so they do not go down that same path.
We spoke to Run For Your Lives on a previous show and talked about their event and what was in store for the future. There was only talk of moving upwards at that time. Listen HERE.
We loved this event and are sad to see it go. How do you feel? Please let us know in the comments below.
This sucks
And I JUST ran RFYL in Brooklyn last Saturday 9am wave filming the whole thing on my gopro. The obstacles and course this year were very shoddy compared to Amesbury. But running on the asphalt tarmac at the airfield was so awesome and brought an urban feel to running from the zombies compared to Amesbury’s running on a woodland course that constantly sloped to the right. HUGE clearings, less bottlenecks of runners, zombies in BIG hordes, good parking, etc. Its a shame that its gone :(
I was a spectator at their Pittsburgh race this year ( my teenage son was a zombie) and It was a really good time. I had sooo much fun!! We already had plans for the race next year………..well I guess thats done…….
I’m confused because according to their facebook page, registration for 2014 is opening next week.
Hey there. A day or so after this article was published, a company called, Human Movement LLC has taken over the event. This company is behind events like Dirty Girl, The Color Run, 5K Foam fest and more. We have updated the article to reflect this new info. Thanks!
I was planning on going to the race in Texas on November, but when I was searching for the official page, I discovered that all races had been canceled. I’m really upset and if anybody in the Run gor Your Lives company happens to read this then I recommend you reconsider the opening of this amazing race.
This sounds like a classic case of “Enron.” Very shady. I just lost 200 bucks for the registration I did months ago for the Sacramento race in April of 2014.
I worked for the bank for over 5 years and I have to say that anyone who is going to try to get their money back most likely will be declined. If you purchased a ticket within the last 30 days of this cancellation or so called business that closed you have a chance to file a claim. I believe this company knew what they were doing and imagine how much money they got away with! They didn’t even have the decency like. Regular venue who cancels to refund everyone back automatically. That is why this is 100% fraud.